


Mourning Glory

by Legbird



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: "if i wasn't so happy about you being alive i'd kill you" trope, Current Day, M/M, emotional hellfire!! HELLFIRE!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7170281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legbird/pseuds/Legbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Undead sentimentality is the worst. The feelings you bury deep down in your chest because nobody needs to know these things anymore always ache like a funeral hymn caught in your throat. Then, in the dead of night, some memory crawls from it’s grave and infects your entire being. Usually, that memory is a “Someone”. Then, in a way, you both become the walking dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourning Glory

    Morrison fucking  _ hates  _ him. Fucking in the adjective sense, the angry and visceral snarling sense. The hands under throat sense, where nothing is sexy or heated beyond blood past its boiling point. Morrison hates Reaper. Plain and simple. Terrorists don’t make for good teammates, and working together- they don’t  _ work.  _ They shoot off on different paths, Reaper making damn sure to avoid any biotic field tossed down in Gibraltar, like some sort of punk kid. Nothing is settled, everything is tense.  Somewhere down the line, Morrison remembers a feeling like that. Static in the air. Fractured bonds, something like that.

    If he was sentimental, it’d get him killed. Which, of all things- he remains sentimental enough to be caught on his own, wandering the watchpoint with a sort of slow saunter, post-mission. There’s a swirling vortex of maroon and black behind him, then a shadow. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t jump- pulse cannon shoved directly into the chest of  _ whoever  _ just showed up. “Whoever” being the kindest way to feign a fake neutrality. He knew it was a wraith. That noise, the chill in the air. Oh, he knew.

   “Still working towards your merit badge?” Reaper states, voice echoing through the tight alley with a nerve-aching reverb. He doesn’t flinch, even when the gun isn’t retracted from against his chest- instead, pushing it away gently with a hand. There’s a sputter of a curse when the gun snaps right back into position over his sternum.

   “Mission’s over, you can damn well take your leave, now.” Morrison states, glare obscured through his visor, but his grip tense. Getting caught in a sort of vague trance was bad enough, but this? Oh, no. He’s not dealing with any skull-faced freaks. Not on  _ his  _ watchpoint. “You don’t have any reason to stick around.”

   There’s a slight silence, Reaper taking a solid  _ thwack  _ to the pulse rifle with his hand and moving it aside, claws settling on the jaw piece of the vigilante's tactical visor.

  “If it’s over, then you don’t need to play dress-up.” His voice is solid, a bit of a coo- as far as a gargling echo  _ could  _ coo. It almost sounds intrigued, of all things. Playful, even. Morrison shudders at the thought, free hand swinging up to mimic the motion and grip the chin of the terrorist’s mask.

   “Speak for yourself.” He spits, flat and aggressive- nowhere near as explorative as Reaper’s tone, but something in him doesn’t force a stop. He doesn’t struggle or squirm away- just stands and faces death. Or a punk dressed like death, which was something vaguely less horrifying. 

   There’s a click, and a much more harsh sea breeze against his face. It comes slowly, Morrison remains unblinking as the visor drops, unceremoniously to the floor. In a blank rage, his fingers curl around the mask and shove it upwards. Two can play this game- and he isn’t about to lose. So he knows his face, now. So What?

_     So everything.  _

    Morrison stares. Not any less than the face behind the mask stares at him, but he stares nonetheless. Hate, confusion, possibly something akin to heartbreak. All valid expressions, all valid responses. But, Morrison refuses to handle these calmly. 

   “Jack-” There’s the start of a rasp, without the echo, broken right before any sort of explanation or questioning by a solid punch- barely misdirected into the wall near his throat. There’s rage in his eyes, or something akin to it. For the love of god, he  _ wants  _ it to be rage. But he knows damn well it’s all ache and loss.

  “You died.” He says, stern and unwavering, but the body language shakes where his voice refuses. Morrison curses himself, the situation, Reyes- everything. All quiet and sputtering and pitifully desperate. “You  _ fucking  _ died, and they buried you. Zeigler couldn’t resuscitate you, and you  _ died.”  _ He curses more, reiterating an entire history of traumatic events.  

  Reyes is silent, standing against the wall, but watching, almost apologetic and pitying. 

  “I didn’t stay that way for long.” He says, unflinching while Morrison’s fist hits the wall again, slightly weaker this time, maybe in defeat. “You still look like hell.” 

  Morrison stares back up at Reyes, hand going flat against the wall. He doesn’t touch the wraith, no stray tactile motions against the gaunt face because every composed bone in his body steels itself against the urge- but Reyes is already beating him to the punch, the touch. Tracing the pads of his fingers across the scars on Morrison’s face with a tentative precision.  

  He considers flinching away from the touch, still enraged by what his companion had become, and yet- he closes his eyes- damning his own sentimentality all the way. It is a touch he undoubtedly missed, buried the memory with the body, only to resurface as some zombie years later. 

  “I saw your body.” He says, a half murmur. It’s quiet in the alley, sun just past setting over the horizon. Something about the atmosphere called for an armistice. Or honesty. Either way, Reyes is calm in his response.

  “I visited your grave.” 

   It seems, if anything, out of place. Strange coming from the newfound terrorist (Something Morrison has yet to forget or forgive), yet- it explains one thing. The first time he saw his own grave, Morrison remembered morning glories- something soft and pale blue. It had been months after the funeral, and the only thing left at the marker were the flowers. 

  Against every fiber of his current being, Morrison listens to the ghost of his younger self. The commander. The friend. The non-explicit lover. All against his will to fight and turn away and never look back- he returns the touch, slow against Reyes’ jawline. 

  “At least you have good taste in flowers; when you aren’t doing this anarchist bullshit.” He mutters this, still slightly displaced in time- as if stuck in some phantom part of his past that got moved around in a slipstream. Reyes doesn’t respond, not entirely. He closes his eyes, leaning to the touch. 

   “You can blame Sombra, if that’s what’s really pissing you off.” He says finally, Morrison closing the distance between them. 

   “Were they the one who brought you back?” He asks, slightly less detached, and when Reyes answers with a short affirmation, he makes his decision. “I won’t blame her for anything.”

   The world is quiet, even for a moment- arms set aside with the two of them just in some unsure half-embrace. As if they were lost, feeling for the way home on two separate maps. Somewhere, in the valleys of their silence- Reyes admits everything that matters. Four words.

   “It was my fault. 

   There’s an Earth-moving record scratch in the air, and Morrison stares back. His brow quirks down, derisive and waiting for an answer. An explanation.  _ What was his fault _ . 

   “In Geneva. The base. I-”

   “You killed them.” Morrison interjects, pulling away. His core shakes, all of his vows to himself and his own brand of vigilante justice coming to this. A reunion. A betrayal. 

   “I killed  _ you.”  _ Reyes is quick to point out, hand jutting out to wrap around Morrison’s arm. “Don’t you get it, Jack? All of this, for what? Do I look like I’m  _ proud  _ of what I did?” He hisses, a half-plea. “To be some fucking  _ object  _ for Sombra?” Everything goes weak, boiling, breaking. Morrison doesn’t move away from the grip- because  _ this  _ is Reyes. Distress from chaos out of his immediate control, rage against his failures, his shortcomings. 

    “Gabriel.” Morrison says, genuinely through his sigh of partial relief. Realization hits him hard when Reyes stares back at him, shocked and quiet. Morrison hopes he didn't outright   _ forget  _ his name, but that could have been the first time in years he’s heard it. He moves closer, returning to the touch just to make sure this is  _ real _ \- and he wants to know it is. The watchpoint is quiet, again. Between the two of them, there is the sound of their breathing and nothing else. 

   Under his hand, just for a moment, Reyes becomes smoke. A phantom under his hand, and Morrison freezes- the feeling that everything is some nightmare burns up his arm runs quickly. He swears he hears his name,  _ his  _ name, in the air. It is a nightmare, ringing like the day of the event at the Swiss Base, hollow and clear in his ears. He needs the memory to go, to leave, to vanish- but if  _ he  _ had to vanish for it to go, then he’d bear with it. 

    But- within seconds, Reyes is back underhand. Morrison doesn’t express how much of a nightmare it was, but instead, kisses him. Hard. Fleeting, but hard enough to make a statement in the dark. This is their armistice. There is blood stained into their hands, but in this moment, he’ll look past it. They could discuss it later, in the privacy of their quarters. 

     Maybe it only exists through sentimentality, or maybe only through guilt. But, both are sound in their ways. 

      For once, everything is sound.

      Everything is silent.

       As it should be. 

 


End file.
